In the art of making and dispensing chilled beverages, beverages are commonly made by combining and mixing water and liquid beverage concentrate and dispensing the resulting beverages into serving glasses or the like, a serving at a time.
It is a practical necessity that the beverages be suitably chilled when dispensed. To this end, the water is commonly chilled prior to its being mixed with concentrates. In some systems, where it is possible to do so, the concentrates are also chilled prior to the making of beverages.
In furtherance of the above, the prior art has long provided beverage dispensing machines and systems that operate to receive water and concentrate from remote water and concentrate supplies, chill the water and deliver metered volumes of chilled water and concentrates, by means of suitable valve means, to mixing and dispensing heads, beneath which drinking glasses or the like are placed to be filled with beverages, as circumstances require.
In most, but not all instances, the beverages are established of five parts of water to one part of concentrate.
The commonly recognized mean temperature of the environment in which beverage dispensing machines are used and the commonly recognized mean temperature of the water and concentrates handled by beverage dispensing machines is 72.degree. F. It has been determined that the temperature at which beverages can be most effectively and efficiently dispensed is approximately 45.degree. F. Accordingly, beverage dispensing machines should operate to lower the temperature of water and concentrates approximately 27.degree. F. if beverages dispensed thereby are to be at or about 45.degree. F.
As the temperature of beverages increases above 45.degree. F., their character (taste, texture and feel, etc. ) and their marketability decrease at an exponential rate.
It is common practice to place a minimum amount of cubed ice into the glasses in which beverages are served to enhance their appeal and marketability and to maintain the beverages suitably chilled (not to chill the beverages). If beverages, when dispensed into glasses containing ice, are notably warmer than 45.degree. F., the ice melts so rapidly that it often fails to chill the beverages adequately; and, adversely dilutes the beverages.
When beverages, at 45.degree. F., are dispensed into glasses containing ice, the rate at which the ice melts is sufficiently slow that the quantity of ice that need be used is minimal and the ice does not melt to an extent that the beverages are unduly diluted, before they are consumed.
In addition to the foregoing, ice is costly and is both troublesome and inconvenient to work with. Accordingly, for economic and other practical reasons, most commercial vendors of beverages seek to minimize the use of ice.
At this time the prior art provides self-contained beverage mixing and dispensing machines that are sufficiently small and compact so that they can be advantageously placed upon counter tops in cafes, diners, lunch stands, and the like. Those prior art machines are commonly referred to as "counter top machines." For practical reasons, counter top machines are typically made so that they include means for chilling water delivered thereto from approximately 72.degree. F. to approximately 40.degree. F. The chilled water is mixed with non-chilled concentrate to produce and dispense finished beverages at about 45.degree. F. For reasons that will be made apparent in the following, ordinary counter top machines are made to deliver finished beverages at a maximum rate of about 1,200 ounces per hour, which equates to four 5-ounce individual servings per minute.
The above-noted beverage dispensing capacity of the great majority of counter top machines is established by the capacity of the water-chilling means that is incorporated in the machines, to cool or chill the water.
With possible rare exceptions, the water-chilling means used in counter top machines are what are sometimes referred to as water bath chillers and that are most commonly called "ice bank chillers." Ice bank chillers are characterized by open (non-sealed) tanks filled with coolant water; water-cooling coils are arranged within the outer perimeters of the tanks; refrigeration expansion coils are arranged centrally within the tanks and in spaced relationship from the water-cooling coils; and, refrigeration machines at the exteriors of the tanks and of which the expansion coils within the tanks, are a part.
When ice bank chillers are in operation, a bank of ice forms about the expansion coils in the tanks and water conducted through the water coils is chilled by the transfer of heat through the cooling water in the tanks that occurs between the water coils and the ice banks. Due to the fact that ice is a very poor conductor of heat and due to the fact that the ice banks in ice bank chillers are grown from the inside (coils) outwardly to the coolant water, it typically takes in excess of four hours for a useable bank of ice to be built up in ice bank chillers. The design and functioning characteristics of ice bank chillers are such that they cannot be used to chill and distribute water until an ice bank is fully established. In the event that excess volumes of water are conducted through the water coils in ice bank chillers, the ice banks melt down and are reduced so that the ability of the chillers to adequately chill water conducted therethrough is notably reduced. When the foregoing occurs, the beverage dispensing machines with which the ice bank chillers are related must be put out of service for a sufficient period of time to allow the ice banks to be restored or to grow to their desired operating size. Due to the fact that the ice banks grow outwardly from about their centrally located evaporator coils and the ice generated thereby has a low index of thermal conductivity, once the ice banks have melted to an extent that the chiller's ability to adequately chill the water conducted therethrough, it often takes well in excess of two hours for the ice banks to be regenerated; during which time no beverage can be dispensed from the beverage dispensing machines.
In practice, it is not infrequent that beverages are dispensed from counter top machines into common 64-ounce serving pitchers. The filling of one such pitcher causes water to be conducted through the ice bank chillers at several times the rate that the chillers are designed to accommodate. Accordingly, if several such pitchers are filled with beverage in a short period of time during which a machine is otherwise operated to dispense 4-ounce servings of beverage at a rate the machine is designed to dispense beverages, the ice bank of the ice bank chiller is highly likely to be melted down to an extent that the machine must be put out of operation for a protracted period of time to allow the ice bank to be restored or regenerated.
When the above occurs, many vendors equipped with prior art counter top machines seek to compensate for the inability of the machines to dispense adequately chilled beverages by placing more and excess ice in the serving glasses. This results in the dispensing of short servings of diluted beverages that displease customers and adversely affect their business.
It is to be noted that due to the space that is normally available to accommodate counter top machines and due to the resulting maximum practical size of those machines, the ice bank chillers that can be accommodated and used therein are those chillers that are rated at from 8 pounds to 12 pounds; that is, chillers having a water-chilling capacity that is equal to an 8 to 12-pound block of ice. Further, the refrigeration machines of ice bank chillers used in counter top machines are typically 1/3-horsepower refrigeration machines charged with Freon R-12. Laws recently connected require that the use of Freon R-12 be discontinued and that Freon R-134A be used in place thereof. The cooling capacity of Freon R-134A is but a fraction of the cooling capacity of Freon R-12. As a result of the foregoing, when the use of Freon R-12 is phased out and Freon R-134A is used, the water-cooling capacity of those ice bank chillers now used in counter top machines will necessarily be greatly reduced. It is anticipated that when the above takes place, the use of ice bank chillers in counter top machines will have to be discontinued. In those instances where counter top beverage dispensing machines cannot deliver sufficient volumes of adequately chilled beverages to meet the demands of beverage vendors, it is necessary that the vendors resort to the use of beverage dispensing systems that require more space, require more maintenance and that are notably more expensive than counter top machines. Some of those systems often include counter top cabinets that look much like counter top machines but that are supplied with chilled water from separate and remote water chillers. Those water chillers are, for example, stored in cabinets below the counter tops on which the cabinets are supported. Typically, the water chillers in such systems are large capacity ice bank chillers that are substantially larger, heavier and more costly than those ice bank chillers that are of a size and weight that they can be accommodate within the counter top cabinets. Further, when it is required that beverage making and dispensing systems utilizing separate water chillers be provided, the provision and use of separate and remote concentrate supply means are typically resorted to; since the notable advantages that self-contained counter top machines provide have been lost.
In accordance with the foregoing, there is a great need for a self-contained counter top beverage dispensing machine that operates to deliver greater quantities of beverage at notably lower temperatures than those counter top machines provided by the prior art can deliver. More particularly, as a result of the phasing out of the use of Freon R-12 and the phasing in of the use of Freon R-134A, there is a noted and urgent need for a greatly improved water-chilling means utilizing a refrigeration machine charged with Freon R-134A that is so small and compact that it can be incorporated in self-contained counter top beverage dispensing machines and that has the capacity to chill sufficient volumes of water to enable those counter top machines with which it is related to dispense sufficient volumes of sufficiently chilled beverages to meet vendors' demands.